Salt
by lazzokay
Summary: A Les Amis Pirate AU.


The wind howled through the sails like a wolf in the night. Hard, cold rain beat down on the deck as if to split right through and take them all straight down to the locker and beyond. The waves, beating, frantic, wrecked against the hull like a rhythm in an orchestra, rocking the brave frigate precariously to and fro on its dark canvas beneath.

The night had been a weary one. No men had been lost to the storms, but there was something in the taste of the rain that sent a sense of unease through the belly of the Captain. A closeness, a kind of claustrophobic choke that wrung his insides in a way he couldn't quite explain.

_They feel it too, _he realised. He watched as his crew scrambled like ants over the rigging, avoiding the eyes of their fellow shipmates, doing their duty. Each perfectly manufactured for a life at sea, a strong build, a heavy constitution and a mind for rum when the opportunity called, and yet something about them, tonight, in this rain, didn't quite seem to lock.

A summons from the rear upper deck called him from his musings. "Captain!" The voice was high in pitch, cutting through the night's roar. The new boy, the youngun they had picked up in a nearby port. An orphan. _Not yet 10_, the Captain recalled.

A figure, scrawny yet somehow not altogether unseaworthy, scrambled down the steps to the centre deck where the Captain stood. "Captain!"

"Yes, boy, what is it?"

"A light, Captain. From behind, Captain."

_A light._ The knot tightened on his innards, steeling his stomach. He followed the boy up the drenched steps to the quarterdeck in a kind of daze. They reached the stern to a dying murmur of a conversation between a duo of shipmates.

"All I'm sayin' is it weren't worth botherin' the Captain about is all. Not even sure that I saw anythin' in the first place, like, n' anyways, I'm sure it were nothin' that would-" The boy froze as he saw the Captain's approach. "Look, you've bloody done it now n' all," he croaked to the lad next to him. Both were sea-battered youths, small in the features but lean in the limbs from years of labour with the crew.

"Explain yourselves," the Captain barked.

Neither replied. They seemed to be stuck in between glances to each other and the Captain, and then finally over the stern of the ship into the night's horizon.

"There was-" one started. "He saw-" the other overlapped.

"There was a light, 'e says." The orphan pointed at the elder of the boys. "Over the back of the ship. Only it ain't there no more, Captain, see. It's gone."

The orphan was right. There was no light on the horizon, not a glimmer to be seen but the stars above and their reflection in the ocean.

"It was nothing, then," he told the men, though his conscience did not match countainence. "Back to your duties." He turned to the boy, the orphan at his side, and lowered himself to his level, kneeling on the wet deck floor. "What's your name, lad"

"Gavroche, Captain."

"I see. Well, Gavroche, get yourself below deck. This storm grows wilder by the second, and we wouldn't want you getting lost in it, now, would we?" He ruffled the boy's hair, and pushed him off towards the lower deck.

The hours moved slowly on without incident. At around midnight the Captain escorted himself to his chambers, though sleep came interrupted by grim, murky dreams. A light on the horizon. A ship, drenched all in cloud and smoke and mirrors. A sail, so violently red, wrapped all around his men, drowning them, choking his lungs and filling his chest with sea water.

He awoke with a yelp, a sheen of sweat layering his brow, his hands groping at his throat, his breaths wheezing and heavy. _Just a dream_.

A voice cried from above, a shrill call of a man in distress._ No_, his brain wracked and whirred, _it was just a dream_.

But the shouts increased, and did not die. He was thrown suddenly out of his bed as the ship floor jerked beneath him, and he was vaguely aware of the sound of shattering wood from far off. The door to his cabin burst open, and the noise grew louder still but he just knelt, clutching a wooden pillar he had been flung into to as the canon-fire had hit the boat. He could do nothing else. A voice called to him, calling his name, but it seemed muffled, far away, unimportant. He shut down. His eyes closed.

He was jerked out of his stupor by a stony wall of ice cold water slamming into his face. "CAPTAIN!" The racket from outside was suddenly a reality once more, and as he drew in a sharp breath through the water running down his face. He was suddenly aware of little Gavroche running around his cabin and fetching his battle gear, his uniform, his sword, and loading his gun.

"Captain, come on, you have to get ready. A ship, Captain, appeared out of the night, all quiet, like. The rain's stopped but there's this fog, Captain. Come _on_."

The words hit him harder than the cup of water to the face. _I should have him whipped for that_, he thought, as he took the sword belt and buckled it to his trousers. But he wouldn't, he knew. He deserved anything but a whipping, and he may not even get the chance.

Dressed and armed within minutes, Gavroche nodded his approval and drew a boy's salute, not polished in the slightest, but his face ran with sincerity, conviction and loyalty. The lad waited for the Captain's salute in return, and bolted for the door, towards the deck and the now cries above, now mixed with a clash of swords and voices he did not recognise. Some called for King and Country, without falter. But the rest... He could not decipher. _I will know soon enough_.

_For King and Country,_ he told himself, unsheathing his sword and unlatching the cabin door. _For King and Country_. He stepped out into the hold, the noises from above getting louder and sharper by each second.

"For King and Country," he said aloud this time, breaking into a run, jumping 2 steps at a time and emerging onto the deck in a hot frenzy. The scene was a battle field. The air stank of salt and fresh blood. A mix of blue navy uniforms blurred together with a foreign site, a uniform they had not come across before. Not a navy, not a clan, nor pirates, either. And the colour... Their waistcoats, each the same in cut and colour. A vivid shade of red with a sash of blue white and red.

He made his way, panting, dodging through the swords and gunpowder, to the starboard side. His head swam, the faces in the fight didn't look like faces anymore, more like blurs of red and blue and off-white. As he reached the wooden railing, clinging on for dear life, he saw it. The red flag. Red, like the colour of blood freshly drawn, flying above sails of white at the peak of an unfamiliar mast of an unfamiliar ship. Her sides were gold and crimson, and at the hull the name of this rogue ship was written in bold red lettering with a gold shadow. _Musain_.

"_La __révolution__!_" a voice yelled. _The Revolution... _ No... That was over, that was years ago. He must have misheard.

The Captain spun on his heels, straight back into the fight at hand. _For King and Country_. He drew his gun, pointing it directly at the nearest outlaw and pulled the trigger.

A flash of golden light. In one split second the Captain of the ship was acutely aware of a boy's laughter, somewhere in the mix of murk and destruction. Then sudden darkness.

When he came to, only the lapping of the waves and a muttering of low voices was to be heard. His mouth tasted of blood and gunpowder. The battle, the light, the backfiring gun, the laughter, and darkness all came rushing back to him in a bitter memory. He winced as he tried to open his eyes, the glaring sunlight a distinct change from close fog and heavy rain. As his eyes adjusted to the scene around him, he struggled where he sat, bound in rope, on the hard floor of that foreign ship he had dreamt of.

To his right, he spied Gavroche, the pip of a boy who had so chirpily helped him into his uniform. But something about this wasn't quite right. Gavroche was not bound to a mast like he was. In fact, one of the crew of the _Musain_, a rugged looking man with unruly black curls, had his hand placed gently on Gavroche's shoulder. The wild man turned to Gavroche as he realised the Captain had stirred, cracked a smug looking grin, and ruffled his hair. Realisation hit the Captain in the form of the twisted hand groping at his stomach once more. The boy had loaded his gun for him.

A minute or so later, a fair looking individual with a head of golden locks and a young face appeared upon the deck. Nods and words of acknowledgement led the Captain to believe that this man, this youth, was the leader of this band of rogues. He approached, and bent down beside him.

"_Capitaine?_" he asked in a calm tone. His features revealed no intentions.

The Captain remained silent and frozen, staring into the unblinking eyes of the man before him. Unchanging, the leader nodded, a kind of respectful motion, though without sympathy or kindness.

"_Oui._" He turned to a shipmate. "_Combeferre. __Débarasse-toi de lui__,_" he said with a dismissive wave of a hand.

The Captain was unbound from the mast at gun-point and pulled from his seat. A rough hand on his shoulder pushed him towards the edge of the ship, and retied the ropes around his wrists, the barrel of a gun pressed all the time into the nape of his neck.

As he stood on the edge of the wooden beam, his uniform in tatters, he thought he spied in the distance the remains of a ship he once knew. His ship. A sail in the water. He turned on the plank, staring each man of the crew of the _Musain_ in the eye. "King and Country," he called. Nobody moved.

A groan sounded from the dark haired outlaw the Captain recognised from earlier. He rolled his eyes, pushed past a shipmate, and slammed a foot down onto the plank.

His footing escaped. He dropped into the open air, and took his last greedy gulp of salt and sea and life, before a resounding crack as the Captain disappeared into the abyss.


End file.
